The Effectiveness of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on Improving the Severity of Stuttering and Anxiety in School-aged Children Who Stutter

Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental condition affecting 5% of children. Developmental stuttering disrupts the smooth flow of speech, resulting in characteristic speech disfluencies. Anxiety is one of the most widely observed and extensively studied psychological concomitants of stuttering. Recently, it has been shown that noninvasive brain stimulation may be useful in enhancing the results of fluency interventions in people who stutter. The present study aimed to examine whether the severity of stuttering and anxiety was affected by transcranial direct current stimulation in children who stutter.
This study is a clinical trial study in which the statistical community includes school-aged children in Tehran who were referred to psychological clinics for treatment. Twenty-two children with stuttering were randomly assigned in two groups. Eleven children in the experimental group would receive real transcranial direct current stimulation, and 11 children in the control group were exposed to sham stimulation. The experimental group received 20 min of 2-mA anodal stimulation in 15 sessions in three weeks. The severity of stuttering and anxiety was assessed before and after the last session and then 1 and 6 weeks after the intervention.
The severity of stuttering and anxiety in both groups were similar before the intervention (P>0.05). A significant decrease in the severity of stuttering and anxiety at the end of the intervention and 1 and 6 weeks after the intervention occurred in the experimental group (P<0.05), while the control group did not show any significant change.
The results indicated that stuttering severity and anxiety were ameliorated by transcranial direct current stimulation immediately after the intervention and at 1 and 6 weeks follow-up.